CRIA/RIAA/etc

Reports from or about the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) and other regional lobbyists for the legacy methods of creation, distribution and funding of music they represent.

A CBC Arts article hilights the fact that the tabling of proposed copyright law changes is coming in the next couple of weeks.

The article repeats a common misinterpretation of BMG vs. Doe which CRIA has been abusing to justify radical backward-facing changes to the law. This case did not say that unauthorized filesharing of music wasn't an infringement, what it said was that the industry needed to provide a minimal level of evidence of infringing activity in order to fulfill the requirements of Canada's privacy legislation to find out who was sharing. So far the industry has been unwilling to collect trivially obtainable evidence of infringing activity.

Please also see a CityNews article that makes the same serious mistake. We need to ensure that adequate letters to the editor are sent to ensure they are aware of this mistake!

While not at all surprising to those of us who have done our own analysis, an Industry Canada study has confirmed yet again the same as other independent studies have: that P2P filesharing either has a neutral or beneficial effect on music sales.

What Mr. Gohier wrote misses the whole point of what is going on. The music industry is made up of different (and sometimes warring) components, including composers, performers and "makers". The last group dominated the music industry when the equipment necessary for recording and distributing music was expensive, but modern technology changes this. The decision is about composers making a larger cut of the money from music downloads.

There were quite a few articles on Friday talking about how Canada's Copyright Board Sets Royalty Rate for what composers will get from music downloads. This is yet another issue where you need to understand the music industry as 3 separate components, that disagree with each other even more than they do with outsiders.

For a bit of comic relief, check out this Ars Technica article by Jacqui Cheng about the domain name dispute between IFPI.org and IFPI.com. I don't think the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has a case, and having different organizations own different (but related) domain names is the norm.

Michael Geist's latest Law Bytes column suggests that Music Industry Needs A Dose of Innovation, Not Intervention. I believe he sidestepped one of the most important dynamics, which is the growing separation of the majority of players that make up the music industry from the recording industry that historically dominated it.

A CNet article by Greg Sandoval discusses the single mother of two who makes $36,000 a year was ordered by a jury last week to pay the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) $220,000. The recording industry claims they have no choice but to sue music fans, and that they are trying to protect the interests of artists, which is completely false.

Mathew Ingram and Jack Kapica wrote on their Globe and Mail BLOGs about RIAA's first win against an alleged file sharer. I say alleged as there are still questions about whether it is correct in todays world of non-technical people running home wireless networks whether an ISP account holder should be held legally liable for all activities on their account.

I'll let this CNet article by Declan McCullagh about the recent jury verdict speak for itself. I haven't read the details of this case and whether the "making available" claim was relevant or not. The problem thus far has been that the legacy industry associations have been trying to claim that they don't need evidence of there ever being distribution in order to allege infringement. One obvious way for them to deal with this hurtle is to download and listen to the songs themselves, a trivial thing which they tend to not bother doing.